


you're one of the few things that i'm sure of

by smc_27



Series: quarantine dreams [1]
Category: The Society (TV 2019)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, another quarantine fic literally no one asked for!, basically 8000 words of domesticity, cw: caronavirus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:07:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24297841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smc_27/pseuds/smc_27
Summary: When the state goes into lockdown, Allie grabs as much as she can from her office - anything she thinks she’ll need, but looks longingly at her second monitor and knows she can’t carry it home - and texts Harry, asking if his office is officially closing and what he’s gonna do. He’s in a meeting, he says (or, uses the emoji they established to mean ‘busy - will text later’, which is the egg, which is so stupid it makes her smile).She’s at home, a little scared, when he calls.OR, Harry and Allie are dating, and quarantine together.
Relationships: Harry Bingham/Allie Pressman
Series: quarantine dreams [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824532
Comments: 19
Kudos: 125





	you're one of the few things that i'm sure of

When the state goes into lockdown, Allie grabs as much as she can from her office - anything she thinks she’ll need, but looks longingly at her second monitor and knows she can’t carry it home - and texts Harry, asking if his office is officially closing and what he’s gonna do. He’s in a meeting, he says (or, uses the emoji they established to mean ‘busy - will text later’, which is the egg, which is so stupid it makes her smile).

She’s at home, a little scared, when he calls.

“We’re all remote. I can’t wait to not wear a suit every day.”

It is so unlike him to be a silver lining guy, but she doesn’t call him on it. His reaction when he’s scared, too, is to say stupid shit. She knows this about him.

(She also knows he loves wearing suits. She thinks that’s directly related to how good he knows he looks in them.)

“Harry, what…” She looks around her apartment. It’s small - just a tiny studio with the smallest kitchen Allie’s ever seen. They spend most of their time together at his place, which makes sense because it’s three bedrooms and two bathrooms and a view of the East River.

They’ve been together six months, but they see one another every other day, at least, and she wants to know how they’re going to do this.

“Stay with me,” he says, seemingly able to read her mind. “We’ll ride it out.”

There’s something dirty about the way he says it, and he laughs when she groans his name.

“We’ll kill each other.”

He laughs again, and harder. She can hear his keys, imagines he’s spinning them on his index finger the way he does. “I’ll pick you up in an hour?”

… … …

Five years ago, this kind of thing would’ve sent him into a panic.

Not just the pandemic. But the idea of sharing his space with a woman for a prolonged period of time.

But Allie’s totally different, and his place is big, and like, what’s he gonna do? Just not see his girlfriend for as long as this thing lasts?

So yeah, he said it on impulse, made it into a sex thing to cover it up, but then felt supremely relieved when she agreed.

Allie sitting next to him in his car, texting her sister as they drive over the Brooklyn Bridge…

Shit. Harry has a wild thought about this feeling like a forever kind of thing, but he kicks it aside and turns up the radio too loud, which he knows she hates and does it just to make her scowl at him as he laughs.

… … ...

She never thought she’d date a guy who for some unknown reason owns a _car_ in New York City, or has family money and used part of it to _buy_ his own place in his 20s, or wears a signet ring and thinks boat shoes are a legitimate fashion choice, but, well. Life comes at you fast sometimes.

Harry’s phone rings as they’re pulling into his neighbourhood. He’s talking to a coworker when he lifts her huge suitcase out of the trunk of his car. Look, if she’s gonna be here for however long, she’s going to have a wardrobe of items she loves and some of her favourite things from home. Harry’s candles all smell like expensive, non distinct things, and she wants her bergamot and vanilla, her sandalwood and ginger. She also needed some photos of her family, and her makeup bag and her favourite coffee mug.

She’s unzipping the suitcase on his bed when he walks into the room, finished with his call. He sees all the extra items first, because she put clothes at the bottom.

There’s a look on his face that she either wants to smack or kiss. Unsure.

“Shit. You end your lease, or something?” he teases, and she rolls her eyes and ignores him. _He_ invited _her_ , okay? (She’s just the one who agreed really quickly.)

Instead of being a snot, she wraps her arms around his waist and looks up at him. He’s grinning down at her and she thinks he really likes that they’re doing this, but won’t say it.

“If you want me, you’ve gotta deal with all my stuff, too,” she tells him, and he kisses her, so she thinks he’s entirely fine with it.

… … …

She doesn’t even wear a lot of makeup, but her shit is all over his bathroom counter by 9pm. He’s brushing his teeth and she’s washing her face and using a bunch of serums he doesn’t ask questions about. Her hair’s piled on top of her head and she’s wearing a huge tee shirt and nothing else, and Harry thinks she’s never looked hotter.

He watches her dab on lip balm, and she glances over at him from the corner of her eye. He pats her hip, kisses her temple, and tells her to come to bed.

Falling asleep with her is a thing he likes too much considering how much he’s hated it with every other woman he’s ever been with.

He can smell her stupid candles in his room, but also her shampoo, and then she turns in his arms so her hip brushes up against his front, and he laughs a little at how she always falls asleep so easily.

In the morning, he reminds her that she snores. She says, like a challenge, “Then get earplugs,” and pours him a cup of coffee. She gets toast crumbs all over his counter and drinks from that stupid fucking mug she brought with her that doesn’t match any of his things.

He likes the way it looks on his drying rack. Likes the way she looks in his living room. That last one’s not new, though.

… … ...

Reconnecting with Harry after she’d finished her MBA and he’d finished law school was absolutely not on her radar, okay? But when his firm stepped in to help her startup with its contracting process, privacy policy, and terms of service, and Harry fucking Bingham walked into the conference room she was sitting in, the way he’d looked at her like he was happy to see her made her feel better than she’ll admit, even now, months later.

And at first it was all work, all the time. Then the contracts were done and Harry was leaving after their last meeting together, and he’d leaned against the conference table and asked if she wanted to grab a drink sometime. Her 16 year old self was inside somewhere, screaming that she _shouldn’t_ , but the 27 year old her thought he was smart and nice and sort of (very) sexy, and said yes. She’ll have you know she didn’t sleep with him until their fourth time hanging out alone. She’ll have you know that he made the first move and she leaned away, and he’d said, “Sorry. Can I kiss you?” and god, that sort of sealed the deal for her.

She said I love you first. The look on his face was totally worth it. In a very good way.

And she thinks they both really like that they’re successful and independent and _adults_. Harry tells her she looks hot in her work clothes. She likes watching him tie his ties.

She knows they never would’ve worked together at any point before this.

She’s just the slightest bit scared of what being locked in the house together might do to them.

… … …

In the morning, their first morning of working remotely, she wakes up and stretches and then seems to immediately remember what’s going on and why they’re here together.

“I’m scared,” she admits, and Harry looks at her sadly. “This is scary.”

He just nods, then says, “Have you talked to your parents?”

He knows the answer, he realizes. She’s been texting them. They’re home and safe. But her mom is an administrator at the hospital in West Ham, and Allie’s gotta be freaking out about her possibly being exposed. His mom’s mayor there, and she barely has time to talk to him about anything that’s going on. He’s told her he’s safe, that he’s home, that Allie’s with him. His sister’s been back from Georgetown since classes were cancelled last week. He’s so fucking thankful she did it before she was told. Not the way she expected to end her freshman year, he’s sure.

She gasps, then looks up at him with wide eyes, and he’s… “Cass and Gordie’s wedding.”

Harry sighs, purses his lips. Yeah, they’re gonna have to cancel that shit.

(He’s a little disappointed. Allie looked fucking beautiful in her dark green maid of honour dress she got for the occasion. Harry was kinda looking forward to seeing how good they’d look together.)

… … …

They watch the news together. Harry’s a news person, and Allie’s a podcast person. But Harry stands there in his living room with his arms crossed as they listen to all the restrictions listed on the screen, and Allie chews her lip and tries to come up with a plan.

Minutes later, she’s making a meal prep calendar, telling him to sit down next to her so they can work it out. She thinks they should take turns going for groceries. He suggests they go together, but just each go into different stores - split the lists and get it done fast.

He unbuttons his shirt as she asks what they should have for dinner tonight. He’s got a frozen pizza and a pint of ice cream. They lean on his kitchen island eating pizza off the sheet tray and she thinks they’ll be okay.

… … …

She’s staring at him as he reads, which is a thing she does pretty regularly. He doesn’t call her on it, because he figures she just thinks he looks hot, and she’s entitled to her correct opinion. They’re sitting on either end of the sofa, him with a biography in his hands, and her with her laptop open and her earbuds in, watching some no doubt awful show he has no interest in.

“Really getting a lot out of that series, huh?” he asks, not looking up at her as he turns his page. She kicks him gently in the hip.

“You’re distracting me,” she says, then winds the cord of her earbuds around her finger. He should get her some Airpods. He can’t say he hates the way she’s looking at him, though.

“I’m not doing anything.”

Allie closes her laptop, then his book, and lies herself out on top of him.

“You know exactly what you’re doing,” she says, her breath warm against his face as he moves his hands down her back. “You little shit.”

It’s like a term of endearment and he hears it often, and he fucking loves it, okay? Sue him.

He grins at her, tilts his head so he can kiss her. She presses her tongue against his lips and shifts so she’s straddling him.

One of his favourite things about her is she knows how to get what she wants.

… … ...

Harry orders them stupidly expensive loungewear, tells her he’s not going to let this fucking virus turn him into a slob. Allie wears his Harvard sweater on her first all team Zoom conference. Harry’s still wearing button downs and jeans or slacks for work because he’s still a lawyer. At first, he works in his office with the door open, but it drives her fucking insane, okay? She’s sitting at the kitchen counter and she can hear everything he says, and learns that he talks to himself while he’s working.

After three days, she marches over and pulls the door closed when he’s on the phone with a client. The look on his face when he sees her doing it is annoyed first, then understanding second.

He says, “Let’s turn the other bedroom into an office for you.” Allie wants to protest, but he adds, “Who the fuck knows how long we’ll be working like this?”

Allie picks out a desk from one of the approved websites he gave her. She made fun of him for it, but one of the most annoying things about it is that he actually has really, really good taste. Her actual office has a standing/sitting hybrid, which she misses, but she’s not trying to be picky about having a workspace at home. Most of her colleagues are huddled up on couches or kitchen tables.

Harry hands her his credit card to make the purchase, tells her to get rush shipping, which is an extra $200, and she is honestly never going to get used to being with someone who has so much money. She didn’t grow up poor by any stretch of the meaning, but the way Harry spends money is so different from anyone she knows, just because he has so much of it. In relative terms, her spending $400 on clothing in one trip is the same as him buying a $5,500 watch. Which he did last month, because they were in this little store in SoHo and he said he liked the way the all black looked peeking out under his dress shirt.

(He was right. It did look good.)

As he slips his card back into his wallet and asks her if she’s good with pasta for dinner again because that’s literally all they have, she smiles at him until he looks at her like she’s doing something weird.

“You like taking care of me, huh, Bingham?”

He rolls his eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself. I just have better style than you.”

“Mhm.” She leans her chin on her hand and wonders if there’s any White Claw left. She can’t remember if they drank the last of them last night. “You really hate the way I look.”

She hears his grin as he says, “Mostly,” and reaches for a pot to start their dinner.

Allie watches him move around the kitchen, and wonders, briefly, how the hell she got here.

Then he makes fun of her for basically wanting fancy mac and cheese, tells her she’s got the palette of an eight year old, and reaches for his phone off the counter when it lights up with a message. They both know she’s a better cook than him and he’s just being a brat to annoy her.

She makes this soup he loves for dinner the next night. He burns his tongue because he’s impatient, thanks her by doing the dishes.

… … …

She looks hot as hell in the joggers he bought her. They make her butt look great, and she laughs when he tells her that, but he really means it. Not that he’s surprised.

He hears her crying in the middle of the day, when he’s taking a break after a frantic client meeting. Frantic because his client is panicking and Harry’s got to navigate both emotions and the law. Annoying. He’s standing up to stretch his legs, and thinks he’s hungry or bored, and wants a snack either way. Allie’s sniffling in the other spare room, back to the door as she sits at her desk.

(They’d put it together when they were a little drunk, which was hilarious and stupid and ended up taking twice as long, but like, who gives a fuck about time right now?)

He walks in after checking to make sure she’s not on a call. There’s still a bed in here, because this is where his sister sleeps when she comes to visit. He sits at the edge and Allie wipes her tears.

“We’re laying off eight people.”

Honestly, it’s shitty, but he’s mostly just relieved that it’s not her who’s losing her job. She’s as much of a workaholic as he is, if not more, and he doesn’t want to think about what she’d do if she didn’t have something to do and a way to earn income.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her. His law firm hasn’t had to reduce staff yet. They reduced the salaries of senior partners to offset the salaries of more junior employees. “Your team?”

She nods. Shit.

“How the fuck is this life?” she asks. He’d laugh if the timing was right, which it really, really isn’t. He reaches for her, and she comes over and sits next to him, leans her head on his shoulder. “This isn’t normal. It’s fucked up and we’re all just...forced to deal with it.”

He doesn’t say anything. He thinks about her mom, again, working in healthcare. He wants to tell her it could be worse, but she’d be pissed at him for it, and he understands why.

He realizes after a moment that she’s just scared. Her company is young. It’s rapidly scaling, and she’s in a position of leadership because she came into it when they were smaller and made herself so useful they kept moving her up. And thank god their product isn’t hugely affected by people being stuck in their houses and the economy being fucked, but still. People are getting laid off, and people are _dying_ , and she’s stuck inside, and like. He doesn’t love any of this, either, but he thinks maybe he’s somehow handling it better than she is.

“And I’m getting your shirt all teary,” she adds, sort of pathetically, and Harry chuckles softly and rubs her shoulder. “Sorry.”

“I have like, 80 shirts.”

He’s not dumb. She’s apologizing for her freakout, not specifically her tears on him.

She tilts her head back. “Serious question.” He’s got a decent track record of answering these well. “Will you still wanna be with me if I lose my job in a shit economy?”

Harry laughs. This is the stupidest shit he’s ever heard. He almost can’t believe she’d even ask him that.

“Yeah,” he answers, knowing she wants a proper answer and not some snarky thing where he tells her she’s insane. “Even then.”

She gives him a grin and pulls away. “You’re totally suited to be someone’s sugar daddy.”

His brow goes up and she bites her bottom lip, and like, it’s 2pm on a Wednesday. This isn’t the first time he’s thought they could have a quickie in the middle of a weekday, but it’s the first time it’s a legitimate, logistical possibility.

He’s got a call in 10 minutes. Quickies are barely fun when there’s a deadline. They’ve learned this.

(He tried to get her off once when they were waiting for their takeout order, but he was teasing her, and she ended up so frustrated she didn’t talk to him until they were finished eating and the leftovers were put away.)

“You only want me for my money, talent, and good looks. I see how it is, Pressman.” She kisses him full on the lips, takes a deep breath. “You okay?”

She nods, gives him this soft look he loves. (It’s sort of rare. He thinks it’s saved for when she really, really realizes how much she cares about him. About this.)

“Thanks, Harry.”

He gets up, winks at her, and leaves her to do her work.

… … ...

His panic sets in when they start bringing in refrigerated trucks to park on city streets for a very specific and morbid reason. And he doesn’t want to talk about it. Allie won’t push him, but she will distract him. She says they should do home workouts, and laughs at how good he is at yoga versus how bad she is. He says something about her being inflexible as shit. She shoves at him when he’s in warrior 1 and he falls on his ass. It’s the first she’s heard him genuinely laugh in two days.

“We’re out of scotch,” he tells her, like this _will not do_ , and Allie smiles at him gently and suggests they don’t buy any more alcohol.

Look, she thinks he had a thing in high school he tries to downplay, and she thinks, also, that this is sort of the worst time for people to be relying on alcohol or drinking more than they normally would.

“We can make mocktails,” she tells him.

Harry looks at her like he’s not interested at all, tells her he’s still got six joints but he should get more weed because it actually legitimately helps with his anxiety. She knows that’s true - he’s got the little card that says so - and they smoke together on his balcony with her wrapped up in one of his sweaters and a blanket that doesn’t match her clothes. Her hair whips around in the wind and she thinks he looks hot blowing smoke past his lips.

“When things go back to normal, we should go on a trip,” he says, and Allie isn't surprised, really, but she does like it when he references a long term commitment.

“Greece?” she asks, because they’d just watched a documentary last night about the Spartans and everything looked so beautiful.

Harry smiles at her, takes a deep inhale, then passes the joint to her.

She wants snacks as soon as they’re inside. Not to eat now, but to have close at hand later when she wants them, so she doesn’t have to get up.

“You’re smart,” he tells her as she sets the bag of chips and the Starburst on the coffee table. His eyes are all shiny and his hair’s a mess from running his fingers through it.

Allie presses her lips to his cheek and says, “I _know_.”

They watch some dumb cooking competition show and she heckles the people she thinks are jerks. Harry comments that bread pudding is overrated and if someone served it to him, he’d be so thoroughly unimpressed he’d refuse to eat it in protest.

Allie rests her head on his thigh and smiles at the way he lets out a breath like her being here calms him.

… … …

He doesn’t really want her to hear him being an asshole to this guy, but he needs water and Allie’s eating a late lunch, and so when he says, “That’s bullshit, Johnson. Not that I’m surprised, because you do sloppy work at the best of times. But be serious.”

Allie’s just watching him and he’s trying to avoid her gaze as he fills his water glass from the spout on his fridge door. Her leftovers smell good and his stomach rumbles as this idiot tells him that the force majeur clause in the contract their two parties signed doesn’t cover pandemic, even though it says the fucking word _right there_ in the document.

And he went to law school with this asshole, and Harry beat his ass in every mock trial ever, and that is 100% why the guy’s a complete dick every time they talk. It’s almost annoying having to wipe the floor with him every time they come up against each other.

“No, just tell your client you lack the reading comprehension required to understand the most basic of contracts, and we’ll call it good.” Allie breathes out a laugh and Harry smiles, turns to her. “No, that sounds like your problem. Just admit that you lost, and when they start looking for new council, send ‘em my way.”

He ends the call, drops his phone on the counter, and Allie raises her brow at him.

“I shouldn’t find that as attractive as I do,” she admits. Harry places both hands on the granite and smirks at her. “You’re kind of a hot shot, huh?”

Honestly, this is the kind of shit that gets him in trouble with the senior partners, which can hurt rather than help. But they’re trying to protect their client from losing over a hundred million dollars, so he thinks he’s probably safe in this case.

“That do it for you?” he asks. Allie shrugs her shoulder coyly. She’s so fucking hot.

“Little bit.”

His phone buzzes on the counter. It’s his client. He sighs, looks at her from under his lashes, and says, “We can talk more later about how bad you want me?”

Allie’s laughing hard when he answers, and he smiles the whole way back to his office.

… … …

She likes this thing they do where they name random places they’re going to go once they can. Scotland, Portugal, Italy. He says something about Sweden and she says Argentina just to put them on the opposite side of the map.

Allie drapes her clothes over the back of the chair in his room - sort of their room - when she takes them off. She also has a really bad habit of leaving partially full glasses of water lying around. She notices the way Harry picks them up and takes them to the kitchen when he sees them. She _means_ to do it, she just forgets. She listens to music when she’s working, and decides since she’s got her own office now, there’s no need to wear headphones. Except one day he taps gently on the door and asks if she can keep it down. She apologizes, but feels kind of badly and then borrows his expensive over the ear headphones with the better sound quality.

She’s up to her eyes in financial statements, budgets and spreadsheets, and her dishes from breakfast and lunch are sitting here next to her, plus an apple core and her coffee mug. Harry comes in to tell her his mom wants to video chat with them tonight, sighs when he sees the clutter, and reaches for it. She wants to tell him not to clean up after her, but she’s _really_ trying to focus on this right now.

It’s that evening, after they talk to his mom and sister, that she takes her sweater and bra off and tosses them onto the chair, that he huffs and says her name. Okay, to be fair half the pile of clothes sort of falls onto the floor and she doesn’t pick it up.

“I’m trying to be chill about this, but you’re driving me fucking crazy with the clutter.”

Allie throws an apologetic look his way, and she knows, mostly, that he’s more tidy than her. She always sort of expected it’s because he has a cleaner who comes in once a week. Well, used to. But now she realizes that he just likes his place clean. She gets it. She doesn’t know why things have to look spotless, but this is his place and she’s a visitor, and she’ll admit, there’s a happy medium between spotless and a leaning pile of clothing.

She starts at least folding things before she sets them on the chair. Then she carves out time every few days to actually clear the pile. She orders a fancy water bottle on Amazon that she can use instead of glasses.

He thanks her on Saturday morning when they’re doing a clean together. She’s doing laundry and he’s vacuuming and she wipes down all their most touched surfaces with Lysol.

“I’m only doing this because you yelled at me,” she says, totally unable to hide the laughter in her voice. (He didn’t _yell_.) She wishes she had a better poker face.

He rolls his eyes and tosses a cushion at her. She fluffs it and tosses it back onto the couch. They spend their afternoon making out and there’s something lazy and almost innocent about it, until he slips his hand into her pants and calls her sexy.

… … …

Okay, he doesn’t mean to start a fight. But she’s doing work on a Sunday afternoon, which he finds annoying, and when he asks her if it can wait til tomorrow, she literally shrugs him off and says it’s just one thing. Honestly, he thought lawyers were shit awful at not working too many hours in a day, but this tech startup life is worse. Apparently. And he wonders how he didn’t see it before, but he realizes maybe she was more intentional about not working when they were spending time together. Now that she’s here all the time, there’s no separation between hang out time and other time...well, it’s like she thinks she can work whenever and he’ll be fine with it because he’s there, too. Like, around.

But it’s a fucking Sunday, and Sundays are for cuddling.

He’d normally just leave, which is absolutely a shit thing to do and not fair. But he’s not going anywhere right now and he’s not stupid enough to put either of them at risk because his feelings are hurt that she’s not paying attention to him.

When he thinks about it like that, it makes him sound like a baby.

He turns up some music and reaches for his PS4 controller. He hasn’t played in...God, maybe months. (Maybe that lines up with him and Allie getting serious, but who’s counting?) He doesn’t feel like playing a stupid violent game, so he plays this dumb survival thing he used to be really into and spends two hours gathering supplies and building his little base. He opens a beer - the last one in the fridge that they’ve both been entirely ignoring. Whatever. It’s his now.

“Sorry,” she says as she comes back into the living room, and the apology doesn’t feel genuine, so he doesn’t say anything. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

She pauses a minute. “You’re mad.”

The fact that she says it like that lets him know that she knows exactly why, and he finds that annoying, too.

Ignoring her some more is petty, but he does it anyway.

“Oh, cute. You’re not talking to me.” She sounds pissed, Harry cuts his eyes towards her and she has her hand on her hip. “I had to send the forecast. Tom asked for it so he could prep for a meeting tomorrow.”

He thinks, really, the thing that bugs him, is she’s always saying she just needs to do one thing, or send an email, or check something, or update a Trello board, or whatever, and it always, always takes longer than she says. Like, her ‘one thing’ is at least an hour. Always. He’d feel way differently about this if she was just straight with him about it.

He also thinks her CEO treats her like shit sometimes, and he’s not into it. He hasn’t figured out a way to bring that up that doesn’t make him sound like a jealous boyfriend.

Allie walks back to the bedroom - their bedroom, not her office - when he doesn’t say anything.

Ugh. This is stupid. He gives her a few minutes by herself, then follows, sits on the edge of the bed. She’s lying down, scrolling on her phone, not looking at him.

“I want you to pay attention to me,” he says, because it’s petulant, but true, and he figures honesty’s the way to go. Not entering arguments in his relationship like he would as a lawyer can be difficult. Their first fight, she almost broke up with him because he just wanted to _win_ and she told him she wasn’t going to be with him if he wasn’t going to work _with_ her.

He’s really committed to not being a bad boyfriend.

(He’s really committed to Allie.)

“And you ignoring me was supposed to, what? Give me a taste of my own medicine?”

“Fair point.” She rolls her eyes, but sets her phone down. “Just...manage my expectations.” She’s just watching him. She really doesn’t like when he uses business or legal language during their conversations. “I can entertain myself. I don’t need hand holding. But if I think we’re gonna cuddle and then you’re looking at a spreadsheet I can’t understand…”

(He’s not even embarrassed to say the thing about cuddling, because she knows how he feels about Sundays. And she’s already made fun of him for it. But she likes it, too, and she can’t even lie.)

“Okay,” she says, reaching for his hand. “I can do that.”

“And I can stop acting like a baby when I don’t get my way.”

Allie presses her lips together, suppressing a laugh. She finally says, “No, you can’t,” and it’s cute and teasing, and when he kisses her she grabs onto the front of his shirt.

… … …

She’s struggling to think of something to get her boyfriend for his birthday, while they’re both stuck in the house, they can’t go out to eat, and he has more money than he knows what to do with.

She blows off half a day of work, locked away in her office, and puts together a stupid and silly scavenger hunt. She hides clues around the apartment on a Saturday morning when he’s out getting groceries - tucking things inside books and carefully attaching them to the underside of shelves and on surfaces. She hopes he won’t find them before his birthday in two days. They’ve both taken the day off so they don’t have to worry about work, at least, as they celebrate. She also pays a ridiculous price to have a bottle of champagne delivered.

She’s ordered him an expensive (well, by her standards) tie pin that matches the one his dad’s wearing in a photo Harry’s got in his office. When she asked him about it, he’d told her they buried his dad in it. She hopes it’s a good gift and not a sad one.

She wakes him up in the morning and the whole point of the scavenger hunt is that he’ll find his gift, but she _loves_ birthdays and wants to give it now. She manages to be distracted from that thought when he blinks his eyes open, smiles at her sleepily, and places his hand over hers on his chest.

“Happy birthday, you little shit.” Harry laughs a little, closes his eyes. Allie kisses the corner of his mouth, and he looks so content it makes her heart feel full. “I have a whole thing planned. You should wake up.”

“Is the whole thing you getting naked and staying in this bed, or?”

Allie thinks it’s truly on brand that this is the first thing he says on his birthday.

They have all day for coffee and scavenger hunts. They only have now for her to fulfill his simple request.

The first time she stayed here, she marveled at the comfort of his fancy king bed and said she was tempted to jump on it just to see what would happen. She suspected you wouldn’t bounce at all. She was correct.

When she stands up, Harry’s looking at her with dark eyes and moves his arm so his hand’s behind his head. Allie pulls off her tank top and slides her underwear down her legs, then moves so her feet are on either side of his hips. When she gets onto her knees, she teases at his lips, says, “I love you,” without actually kissing him, and then pulls the duvet down as she moves down the bed.

Harry makes them coffee, after, while she’s in the shower. She almost feels bad. She wanted to treat him. He’s gross and says, “You just did,” and she shoves at his chest.

When she walks into the kitchen in the stupid (comfortable, soft) lounge wear he got her (and it fits ridiculously well and she doesn’t know if this is just the norm with expensive clothes, but…) he smiles and slides her mug towards her. She loves him quite a lot for how he pretty quickly stopped trying to serve her coffee in one of his plain, matte grey mugs.

She makes them breakfast, and tangles her legs all up with his at the breakfast bar, teasing him as they eat. His phone’s blowing up, and she notices he only responds to his mom, who promises to call him this evening after work, and his sister, who tells him she’s sending something to his place but it got delayed because of ‘the shitshow’.

“You gonna stick to me all day?” he asks when she slides her hand up his thigh as he finishes his coffee. “Because I don’t hate it.”

“No. There’s an activity.” He looks at her skeptically. “It’ll be fun. I promise.” He smiles like she’s cute and he wants to tell her so. She sees this look a lot. “I worked really hard on it.”

The first clue is on the bathroom mirror. She stuck it there this morning, on a heart shaped post-it. She knows he brushes his teeth exactly 20 minutes (she thinks there’s a timer, but he won’t confirm or deny) after he’s finished his coffee so his teeth don’t stain but...She doesn’t know. Something about enamel. He reads the clue, then catches her eye in the mirror as she waits in the doorway. There’s a little riddle, a reference to one of his favourite books. He’s got three copies. The next clue is on the dedication page of the newest edition.

It takes him two hours to finish the scavenger hunt. He keeps getting distracted. Once by his phone, when it rings twice in a row and it’s his grandmother. Another by the news, because they’re reporting something about testing and numbers that seems really serious. And then twice more by Allie. Once when he pushes her against the wall in the hallway and almost, almost has her letting him take her right here. And another when she’s answering the door when the doorman brings up the champagne that’s been delivered. (It’s the door he presses her against, then.)

When he finally finds his gift, he tells her most people just use wrapping paper to build suspense, not a whole game and treasure map. The way he says it lets her know he’s just joking, and that he’s actually really touched. If there’s one thing she knows about this man, it’s that he likes it when people truly care about him. It breaks Allie’s heart a little thinking about all the people who should’ve, but didn’t.

He’s a little stunned when he opens the velvet box. He’s just staring at it.

“They didn’t have garnet, so it’s got a ruby,” she says, suddenly nervous. He finally looks up at her, and she feels completely...She loves him, okay? He looks so touched, like he feels very seen. Allie’s happy to be the one to see him.

He’s holding the box when he also takes her face in his hands and kisses her. The velvet is soft against her cheek and Harry’s forehead is pressed against hers when he pulls away.

“You’re something else, you know that?” he says softly. A little reverently.

“I know. You’re really lucky.”

He nods instead of laughing.

They get drunk on champagne in bed in the evening, and Harry’s pressing, “I love you,” into her skin when her fingers slip into his hair and her eyes close.

… … …

She talks to Cassandra for three hours one evening and Harry seriously wonders if she’s doing it just to needle at him.

Okay, he’s not seriously wondering. He knows it’s not true. He knows being around Cassandra comes along with being with Allie, and he’s not a stupid kid in competition with the girl anymore. She’s also a lawyer - because of course she is - but she works in policy, which he has little to no interest in. So she can have it. They actually sort of get along now.

But he just wants to watch the latest episodes of The Last Dance and Cassandra keeping Allie talking is getting in the way of it. Because Allie made him promise not to watch without her.

He’s lying on the couch as Allie sits with her laptop and Zoom open. They’re talking about some dumb inside joke they have and Harry knows he makes a face out loud that he doesn’t mean to.

“I think Harry wants you all to himself,” Cassandra notes, and he’s annoyed that she’s making it sound like he’s getting in the way of them catching up. It’s literally been three hours and seven minutes.

“He always does.” Allie’s teasing, and he just blinks. “God, I can’t wait for us to all get together once all this is over.”

“I know,” Cassandra says, smiling. “People keep asking me what I’m most looking forward to, and I keep saying hugging my sister.”

Harry watches Allie carefully. This kind of thing makes her emotional.

(She’s been terrified of Cassandra getting sick. He gets it. And he’s bored, yeah, but he knows it makes her feel better to see with her own eyes that Cassandra is okay.)

They say they love each other, and Harry waves to Cassandra, and then Gordie, who pops up in the background like he’s been playing the same waiting game Harry has.

Allie doesn’t apologize and he’s glad she knows she doesn’t have to.

She says, “What’re you waiting for? Put it on!” and Harry gives her a withering look that makes her laugh and take the remote from him.

… … ...

He’s got an early call with a client for a deal they’re trying to pull off with a company in Manchester. He throws on a jacket and tie, which he only ever does for meetings like this. Leaving Allie lying in bed has always sucked, but now that she’s like, living here, it’s even harder, somehow. He doesn’t have time today to think about what it means that now that he sees her every day, he wants to see her _more_.

It’s weird, waking up before her. Her alarm usually goes off first because she takes more time in the shower and decided early on that she doesn’t like being on her 9:15am call with her hair so wet. So she showers and whatever while he makes coffee and they’ve taken to eating oatmeal together, usually standing in the kitchen together. It’s a nice routine. It’s messing him up that he almost can’t remember what it was like to go into an office. To see coworkers and people other than Allie.

He’s busy until 1:30, when he looks up at the time on his laptop and realizes he should eat something. He didn’t want to wake her up this morning, so he settled for a coffee and one of those stupid expensive yogurts she keeps buying. (It was possibly the best yogurt he’s ever had, so that’s annoying.)

When he hears her walk past his office door and into the kitchen, he smiles to himself, checks his calendar to make sure he’s clear for a bit, and gets up to join her.

Allie’s in his kitchen, spreading peanut butter on some toast, in her dark denim jeans and one of his white button down shirts. It’s unbuttoned to her chest and french tucked. She’s barefoot and the kettle is on and her hair is falling down her back.

“Fuck,” he breathes out, and she turns and looks at him. “You look hot.”

She knows it, too. He can tell.

She leans into his touch when he sets his hand on her back so he can reach for a bowl. There’s a rice and chicken thing in the fridge - leftovers from last night - and he’s starving.

She asks about his call and he tells her as much as is appropriate to tell. It’s a weird dance they do. They’ve obviously come to know a lot about each others’ work through this. He already knew a lot about hers, anyway, but still. They hear one another working all day. Her ‘I’m a professional, take me seriously’ voice makes him smile, and he already knows she likes to see him lawyering. And he’s not worried she’s gonna tell anyone anything, but there are still a lot of shit he signs that holds him to confidentiality, and he takes that seriously.

He asks her about her sales meeting, which is like, the one meeting that always creates a ton more work for her and stresses her out. She says it actually wasn’t that bad, and that Aurelia actually came prepared today, by some miracle. Harry laughs as he chews.

He can’t stop looking at her. It’s kind of a problem.

She gets a Slack notification and gives him a _look_ and he almost wants to suggest they both fake sick and go to the bedroom for the rest of the day.

Allie kisses his cheek and he watches her go, she turns to give him a flirty little look over her shoulder before heading down the hall, and Harry takes a deep breath and smiles when he hears her laugh in response.

He can hear her on a call, later, when he’s wrapping up his day. He closes his laptop, switches off the light and pulls the door closed behind him, then heads to the bedroom to change. His closet’s got more of her clothes in it now; they drove into Manhattan last weekend because she wanted a few items she hadn’t brought. He’s not sure why she needs three dresses, because they’re not _going_ anywhere, but he also kind of likes the way her brightly coloured and printed clothes look hanging across from all his suits and stuff. He changes into a black long sleeved tee shirt and joggers, pushes his sleeves up and hits the light as he leaves.

It’s his turn to make dinner and he told her he’d make the bacon and kale pasta she loves, so he figures he’ll get started on that. He pops in his Airpods so he can listen to music while he cooks. He thinks he hears her close the office door behind her - a thing they discovered early on actually helps create space between work and home, or whatever.

He turns so he can rinse the stickiness of the garlic off his hands, and Allie’s walking into the kitchen wearing _only_ his shirt, and he might stare. She smiles, pushes her hair off her forehead, and yeah, this girl knows _exactly_ what she’s doing to him right now.

“I have a surprise,” she says, and he drops the pasta into the pot.

His brow ticks up. “I’ve liked your surprises so far today.”

She grins, kneels down in front of him, and _fuck_ , and then she’s reaching back into the cupboard he has a bunch of appliances in that he barely uses. She pulls out a bottle of red wine, and he considers asking her to elope.

“I love you.”

“I know,” she says, takes his chin in her hand and leans up to kiss him quickly.

Allie Pressman sitting on top of his counter in one of his white shirts and black underwear, legs crossed, glass of wine in her hand…

This might do him in. Swear to god.

Dinner’s ready, but he switches off the burner and turns to her instead of plating it. He fits himself between her legs like he’s been wanting to do since she hoisted herself up there. He presses his hand against her thigh, tucking his fingers up under her knee, and hooks his arm around her waist to pull her closer.

“Allie,” he murmurs, watches her eyes slip closed.

“I missed you this morning,” she says, like a little confession. He likes that, too. Likes that she’s done all this because she woke up wanting him.

She presses her mouth against his and he seriously wonders how they got here. He decides it doesn’t matter, right around the time she drapes her arms around his shoulders and lets him press his tongue into her mouth.

… … …

This is the second time she’s paid rent on a place she’s not living in anymore, and she thinks it’s stupid. When she says this to Harry on a Saturday morning when he’s licking blackberry jam from his thumb and he hasn’t shaved and he’s in dire need of a haircut, he just shrugs a shoulder and says, “Move in,” like it’s not a big deal.

“Harry.”

“We’ve had a good trial run here. If we can make it work during a pandemic, we’re probably good.”

He’s literally saying this with a mouthful of toast, and maybe Allie hasn’t realized until this exact moment how serious they are. Or, maybe just how serious he is about her.

“I can pay rent.” He rolls his eyes, shakes his head. She smiles, moves towards him and steals a bite of his food. (He sighs, because when he asked, she said she didn’t want any.) “I was joking about you being my sugar daddy.”

He gives her a grin that is way too attractive, and says, “I wasn’t joking about taking care of you.”

She eyes the toast he has in his hand and he rolls his eyes and hands it to her, which makes her laugh. She watches him as he reaches for the bread and puts two more slices in the toaster. She wraps her other hand around her mug and says something about making a list of things to do to facilitate this. Harry chuckles and tells her to do whatever it is she needs to feel good about it.

She slips his arms around his waist as he waits for his toast. He drapes an arm around her.

She doesn’t say anything and he doesn’t either. She feels so good here, like this. The toast pops up and he moves away to reach for it. He tells her to quit staring at him like that. She says no. She realizes this is just a regular Saturday, smiles to herself and asks if he’ll help her write the email to her landlord.


End file.
